


ones and zeroes

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, Love Letters, Male-Female Friendship, Older Man/Younger Woman, Pining, Soulmates, The Framework
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 04:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16256270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: Written for Cousyfixit prompt: artificial intelligence. Daisy loses Coulson. Daisy types a letter. And then another. Coulson finds Daisy.





	ones and zeroes

She writes.

Because she doesn't know what else to do.

He wrote her a letter, once.

Okay, she _types_.

It's still writing, even though it's on her beat up laptop and they're a million miles from Earth.

Ones and zeroes are still ones an zeroes, even out here.

They take her words and store them in a safe place, with encryption, where no one else can find them but her.

  
###

  
"Daisy, you know, Elena and I are-"

"Are what?" she asks Mack, after he guides her into his private office.

"I can only imagine what you're going through," he goes on. "And I'm here for you."

"There's a _but_ ," she answers, staring blankly at him.

"But-"

Instead of continuing to try to read her reading him, he turns on his tablet and holds it out to her.

She takes it and starts to read the words on it. And screams internally, panicking.

"I'm flattered," he says, raising his eyebrows. "But we're kind of like-"

She looks up at him as he gestures between them.

"Like an older brother sort of thing?" he offers, with an apologetic smile.

Swallowing, she pushes the tablet back to him and nods to him quietly, as he takes it and turns it off again.

"Of course, I understand," she replies. "Don't even need to say it twice."

Mack frowns at her a bit, out of concern, but she knows that he'll drop it.

And he won't tell Elena, either.

And she won't have to tell him that the words on his screen were never intended for him.

She doesn't even know how it's possible he has them.

  
###

  
The evening is spent in her bunk hacking.

Hacking her own encryption protocols to figure out how the hell it got out.

Trying to trace the way the words were transmitted.

And she can't come up with an answer, and what if other people got it, too?

She groans out loud thinking about having to lie to the entire team about this.

The idea that some of them won't handle it the way Mack did.

She's already exhausted.

It makes her regret writing those things. All of her feelings, when she's used to shoving them down.

Maybe she should delete it all? Smash the laptop, just to be sure?

There's a familiar knock in the corridor, it's "lights out" in order to conserve energy on the ship.

That means all of it, even the laptop, and she can't bring herself to do it just yet.

She hesitates and then shuts off the light in the room, still able to see by the laptop's screen.

There's another knock, this time, on her door.

Putting her blanket over the screen on her bed, she moves to the door and slides it open.

"Hey," she says to Mack, trying to act casual.

"Hey," he replies, standing in the half-lit corridor. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

"Fine," she nods. "A little embarrassed, I guess."

"Don't even worry about it," he says, smiling as she starts to slide the door shut. "Hey-"

"What is it?" she asks him, looking at the way he's fidgeting with just his eyes.

"That letter," he says, then pauses. "Are you sure it was about me?"

"It-it was just a mistake. I'm allowed to make those, right?" she fudges.

"What you wrote," he tells her, looking down at his hands. "It sounded like you really meant it."

"Can't a girl get lonely out here in space?" she jokes.

"I'm just sorry if you didn't get to say it the way you wanted to. I felt like I needed to tell you that."

She knows Mack is onto her.

But she's not ready to talk about it.

 

###

  
The Framework stuff is kind of freaking her out.

Deke thinks they can use it in a training capacity as a battle simulator. Or even to confuse their enemies.

Mack, of course, didn't authorize it, which never stopped a Fitz, ever, so-

:"Just admit that it's genius!"

Which, sure, maybe it could be useful. Like LMDs were supposed to be useful too, right?

Also, she's seen how HYDRA people can literally step right out of that thing and Nazi about.

It kind of shocks her when Mack orders her to recon inside it and report. Mostly because he doesn't trust Deke.

When she gets inside, it's a shock to her system.

She really would love to fling Deke into space right at this moment.

"What have you done?" she turns to ask him, while he grins at her.

"You've just been so mopey," he explains. "I thought by seeing him again, it would make it easier to be trapped on this ship with you!"

"Go to Hell!" she tells him, and turns and tries to find the door to get out of the simulation.

"Daisy," he tells her, softly calling her name, making her heart twist in her chest.

Not Deke.

_Coulson._

"You're not real," she says through gritted teeth, turning around to look at the simulation, then at its author.

"You're just a shadow that he concocted in the Framework."

"It's zeroes and ones, Daisy!" Deke explains empathically. "He was uploaded into it before. I just backchannelled him into it again!"

"That's crazy," she tells him. "How dare you even think you could do something like that! You arrogant-"

She tries to go for him this time, but Coulson steps in between them and puts his hands on her shoulders.

"We'll figure this out. Together. Like we always have."

"I don't understand," she says, looking into his eyes, as tears form in her own.

None of this is even real.

"I got your letters," he tells her with a smile. "So, I found you."

"What letters?" Deke says, staring at her. "You didn't find her, I found you!"

Coulson just shakes his head at him, then smirks.

  
###

  
It's hard to grasp. He's dead.

His _body_ is dead.

But he's here.

And her body isn't here.

He doesn't remember dying six months ago, or her trying to give him the serum with her mother's DNA in it to stop it from happening.

She's not sure exactly who this Coulson is. If he's like the universe had a backup copy of Coulson.

It's hard to care when she's with him, though, because he's still everything.

They speculate about it right away, how there are other universes, with other versions of themselves.

He jokes that he's probably the original one and all the other Coulsons are derived from him.

That there has to be a Daisy wherever there is a Coulson, and it's universal law.

"It's like E = mc2," he tells her.

It makes her smile, just like his teasing her about her hair being blonde, asking if she's having more fun these days.

Mack is letting her bend the rules right now, useing the Framework even when they're supposed to be conserving power.

When there was a big question if it even should be used at all.

"Would you ever want to come out of here" she asks him as they walk through the small town that they left behind on Earth.

"You mean like how Aida got out?"

"I mean, in the sense that we both know it's possible."

"I think at this point, I could believe that anything is possible," he tells her, stopping to look out over the lake and the view of the Lighthouse.

It's not a real sunset, but it looks and feels real, just like the breeze, and how warm she feels when he looks at her like that.

It makes her think about all of the things that she never dared when she had the chance.

So she'll dare now. After all, he's read all of her letters.

She puts her hand on his shoulder, and pulls him in, feeling the warmth of him through his shirt, pressing in against her as she hugs him closer.

His arms wrap around her, encircling her, and she never gets the chance to start it, because he does.

Lips pressed against her temple first, his breathing even, as he moves them to her cheek, and then the corner of her mouth.

Very soft, and kind, and careful. Observing her, to be certain, and it's all of the things she's been longing for.

And, not to say that she's the desperate type, but, okay she is right now.

There has a been a storm inside her since he left, raging, and this is a release, of so many moments she has imagined.

He steps back a little at the force of it, and holds on at the same time, pulls her in even tighter, his arms dropping to her waist.

Tilting his head to give her more access, deepen the kiss. It's only when she pauses at the shock of her lack of self-control, that he starts to kiss her back.

As though saying she can never apologize for this. That they have lost and found each other too many times to consider it a coincidence now.

"We should've done that a long time ago."

"We're doing it now," she tells him, slipping her fingers in between his, smiling at the arch in his eyebrow.

How easily he knows what she wants.

"I'm really glad you wrote me those letters," he tells her. "It made me wish I had more of them."

He pulls at her hand and takes her away with him, down the hill.


End file.
